CeBIT 2009: Linux Wants to Win Back Netbooks

About a year ago almost every netbook ran on Linux. Now the free platform has disappeared from almost all of them. In an Open Source Forum at CeBIT, Warren Coles of Taiwanese netbook vendor Linpus explained the reasons why.

Compiere

Is an open source ERP and CRM business solution for the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) in distribution, retail, service and manufacturing. Compiere is distributed by Compiere, Inc. and through the Compiere Partner Network, a collection of trained and authorized business partners.

The application and source code is provided on the basis of the GNU General Public License version 2. A commercial license, documentation and support contracts are also available for a fee. It is a Model Driven Architecture development, deployment and maintenance framework designed with the intention of following changes as business evolves. At any time, customers can change the information structure, adjusting to new information needs. It provides multiple views of business information based on the detail of the actual transactions. This structure allows flexibility and integration of supplemental external information. And since information is presented as views (using Compiere's MVC architecture), they can be changed to meet the needs of the business.

It is entirely based on the concept of Active Data Dictionary (ADD). Compiere Data Dictionary contains definitions of a data entity (type, validation, etc.), how it is displayed (label on screens and reports, help, display sequence and position relative to other fields), and the display rules. It also contains security and access rules. It has long been criticized for not being a pure open source product because of its dependence on Oracle database (including the free Oracle XE); this has changed now, Compiere is database independent. The project has released a Database Kit for porting Compiere to multiple database. PostgreSQL, MySQL and Sybase ports are in Beta status. Compiere can also be run under the Firebird database using the Fyracle extensions, without porting.

Taking advantage of the Database Kit to create a port for the Apache Derby database the ER/Box project provides an integrated all-Java, all open source Compiere distribution. In addition to the Apache Derby database port ER/Box is also capable of running on PostgreSQL. Compiere also works with the open source alternative to Oracle database, EnterpriseDB. User documentation is still offered on a fee-based accessibility.